


Is it permanent?

by appalachian_fireflies



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: De-Serumed Steve Rogers, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Sexism, Sexual Harrasment, Slurs, Trans Steve Rogers, Transphobia, bless blu for that tag, but it is shrinkyclinks, de-serumed is not the most accurate description, intersex steve, recovery bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:53:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5414156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/appalachian_fireflies/pseuds/appalachian_fireflies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So far.  </p><p>For asocialconstruct's prompt: can you do sad shrinkyclinks?  trans intersex Steve seems like he would have some unhappy dysphoria if he was de-aged, or at least some awkward situations if getting de-aged was how he was outed to Sam/nat/tony/etc.  or just you know some half feral bucky snuggles a la Under Control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Is it permanent?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asocialconstruct](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asocialconstruct/gifts).



> my other trans/intersex steve fics can be considered partly in-universe if you like, but the only relevant info is this: 
> 
> Steve grew up in the 1920's/30's with an intersex condition that masculinized his body enough for him to pass as male. After the serum, he looks typically male except for his genitals, which he's careful to hide from everyone but Bucky, cause Bucky was the first person to see Steve for who he was and they're, you know, fucking.

When Steve wakes up in a new century, his clothes have been changed. It’s all he can think about, buzzing in the back of his mind like static as he barrels through the masonite walls and out into the truth that’s stranger than the fiction. 

_They know._

It turns out he didn’t end up in the hands of the enemy, so it’s not any different from what Erskine knew. He doesn’t know what to think of them, exactly, but they’re from an agency founded by Peggy, and they bear his symbol. There’s no better place for him to land in this brave new world; _here’s a purpose_ , they tell him, _here’s a team and a mission and a place to rest your head_. 

He’s not sure how far the information has traveled, at first. He keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, hunkers down and reads books on history, culture. Staying inside leads to a kind of limbo, a place where he’s waiting for something he doesn’t know how to verbalize; he gets up, runs, has coffee before eight, sees the whole day ahead of him and ends up back in bed. He watches himself lift each of his fingers, increment by monumental effort.

 _A faggot is a gay gentleman who has just left the room,_ he reads in “The Gay Metropolis: 1940 to 1996.” He knows they must be watching him in his SHIELD apartment. He doesn’t really give a good goddamn. He does wonder what he might hear if he left bugs in their offices. 

When staying inside leads to him sitting listlessly for so many hours it begins to frighten him, he tries to go out. He sits at cafes where he is out of the way, anonymous for the first time in a long time, covering napkins and newspapers in sketches. He’s left alone; he’s unremarkable. It’s all he ever wanted. It’s going to eat him alive, inside out. Something’s wrong with him; he’s hollow, he aches. He feels lonely when he’s alone and lonelier when he’s surrounded by life, moving past him. There’s a whole language here he doesn’t understand, he’s a stranger in a home town that’s been taken from him, with no new roots to go back to. 

He spends a lot of time at the graves of friends, his brothers, his family. It’s not life, but he shelters there, takes comfort. It feels more like home than anywhere else, the soft whisper of trees and the ripple of the pond. He’s aware that in seeking life, he’s moved even further away from it, but he can’t bring himself to do otherwise. It’s the only place that doesn’t hurt. 

\--

He goes through missions without anyone the wiser, he’s sure of it. Guys like Rumlow wouldn’t respect him near as much if they knew. Sometimes he imagines Rumlow finding out and making some smart ass comment, teeth wide and sharp like a shark, smelling blood. 

He doesn’t think even Natasha knows. He’s surprised, though he doesn’t know how she could. 

It isn’t until Stark’s New Years Party that the first slip happens. Everyone except Steve is pleasantly tipsy, and he’s drinking so the absence of it isn’t remarkable. He hasn’t tried drinking since Bucky died; it’s not much better this time around. He smiles, laughs, makes conversation. It falls flat. He’s always a little off, not quite right, and the others know it. 

Stark’s on his way to hammered, vehemently disagreeing with Natasha about something, when he points to Steve and says, 

“She-“ 

Barton just stares at Stark, confused, then laughs at him. Stark’s eyes are wide on Steve, horribly apologetic, and Steve wishes he would quit it before the others notice. 

He makes a joke, moves on. It would never cross their minds, he’s sure of it. If he paraded around nude they still wouldn’t comprehend, they’d try to bend their minds to make it fit their image of him. That’s the privilege he now has, that Erskine gave him, of being so invisible in this way that the story the media created for him is truer than the truth. 

Before he leaves, he follows Tony to the bathroom, washes his hands next to him, and says, “This is why some things are private. Not everyone needs to know.” 

He looks at Tony for a long moment, and the man has the grace to hang his head and look ashamed. 

For a long time after that, he’s acutely aware that he’s not-man, not-woman. Not-Cap, not-Steve Rogers. 

\--

He makes it to the point where he’s very functional. He has acquaintances. He says the right things, knows the right jokes. He learns a new language in his mother tongue. It’s nice to not have complaints about his ability to do his job. He can at least rely on his body, though his mind is always a few slow steps behind. 

He’s in an ok place when he’s asked, “What makes you happy?” 

\--

Before, there are rows of neatly organized file cabinets. Here is the war: filed away. Here is his love for Peggy and his grief, closed tight. Get up, brush your teeth, wear the uniform, the cabinet scrolls on slick wheels from repetition. 

Bucky’s alive. 

After, the cabinets tilt, paper flies and the neat stacks are reshuffled, the past with the present, hope with grief. Washing away the careful numbness. 

\--

Bucky keeps a cautious distance when they are finally reunited. He follows his routines, sits and breathes to ground himself, twitches when Steve is within striking distance. If Steve’s movements to keep Bucky feeling safe are like a dance, then Bucky’s motion is an orbit with all the power of gravity to keep his body firmly in place. 

Steve feels Bucky watching him sometimes, trying to comprehend how not to hurt Steve with the reality of the limits of his body and mind. Steve only wants to thank him for teaching him to be alive again, just with his presence. He tastes confusion and heartbreak like honey, orients toward the pull of the sun and is happy to follow parallel to Bucky’s orbit. He’s full like this, exhausted and grateful.

Sometimes, he puts his hand on Bucky’s shoulder to convey this, his simple gratitude for Bucky’s presence, that he has his back no matter who or what he is now. Bucky leans into it for a few moments before he pulls away. 

\--

He doesn’t have Bucky back for long before Loki shows up and turns his world on its side again. You’d think he’d be used to it by now, that he’d learn to roll with the punches, but when he looks at his hands, thin and delicate, he’s shaken down to his core. Vulnerable. 

Loki disappears, and Thor after him, and Steve is left standing in the puddle of his uniform, so shocked by the unreality of this body that isn’t his, hasn’t ever been his, that he doesn’t notice Sam landing lightly beside him until Sam tugs on the shoulder of his uniform. He has his wings up to hide Steve from the cameras, and he’s pulling Steve's suit up to cover his breasts, small but apparent. 

When it becomes obvious that Steve’s not going to respond to Sam’s attempts to engage him, Sam finally hoists him with a “hang on, buddy,” and flies where Tony directs him. 

\--

“Still has the serum,” Bruce says to Sam, and Steve laughs at the avoidance of pronouns. Tony, Bruce, and Sam orient towards him at the noise. 

“He’s right here,” Steve retorts, surly. 

Bruce’s eyes flick over to Tony. “Maybe we’re wrong. His voice-“

Steve flicks his eyes upward, shifts his pitch. “Years of practice,” he says in a perfect female intonation, and watches Bruce’s jaw go slack. 

“All that traveling you did?” Steve drawls, back down in his normal tone, shakes his head. 

“But,” Bruce flounders, “you’re, you-“

“We existed back then, too,” Steve looks at him, and Bruce nods. 

“Right,” Bruce laces his fingers, “sorry. I should have thought before I spoke.” He gives Steve that sad, apologetic smile, and Steve can’t be angry at him. 

Sam is very quiet, brow furrowed. 

“Steve,” Tony says carefully, “if you want to talk about this… somewhere else.” 

“Cat’s out of the bag,” Steve says dryly, looking up at him. It’s damned strange to be looking up at Stark. 

Stark nods at him. “You want the good news or the bad news?” 

Steve just stares at him. 

“Right,” Stark sighs. “The serum’s not gone. It’s just not working like it did before.” He hems. “You’re not showing any signs of an arrhythmia; your breathing test is normal. You’re about a quarter your size, but the muscle you do have is abnormally dense.”

“I’m not sick,” Steve says, realization dawning. He’d been so in deep in shock that he hadn’t noticed, but now he wraps his hand around the bar of the armrest on and _twists_ , bending the metal at a 90 degree angle. 

Stark sits in front of him. “We don’t know what happened. We could run tests ‘till we’re blue in the face, but in this lifetime our answer is going to be magic. We’re not going to give up, but we’re not going to make you our rat either, got it?” 

It’s the first time Steve has seen Stark acknowledge he has limits. It isn’t what he wants to hear. 

“I can’t,” Steve says, feeling panic rise in his chest, “I have to, to think it can-“

“It could revert,” Banner adds, calm. “We don’t know anything for sure.” 

\--

Sam goes with him on the ride home. Bucky doesn’t like to spend too much time in the same room as Tony, starts to worry he’ll be caged like a feral animal again, but he’s come to trust Sam as much as he can trust anyone who isn’t Steve. 

“Penny for your thoughts,” Steve says finally when they’re a few minutes from home. 

“Sorry,” Sam says immediately, and looks at him, really looks. “I’m just, I’m trying to understand.”

“Right,” Steve says, leaning back and closing his eyes. 

“Can I ask you a question?” 

“Shoot,” Steve replies, eyes slitting open as he looks at Sam from the corner of his eyes. 

“This is selfish, I know. I just, I can’t figure out why you wouldn’t tell me, man.” Sam shakes his head. “Did you think I wouldn’t have your back?” 

Steve sits up, because this is Sam, who has risked his life for him and Bucky over and over, who followed Steve on nothing but his word. 

“It’s not like that,” Steve says, making sure Sam hears him on this. “I don’t-.” He thinks about it for a minute. “People don’t see me as any more of the person I am, if they know. They see less.” A smile slips over his lips, bitter. “Before, you’re just a man. After, you’re not, no matter how good someone wants to be about it. It’s not like loving Bucky.” Steve makes sure Sam’s following him, because this is important. “I never lied to you. I told you exactly who I am.” 

Sam nods at that, processing, lips slightly parted. “I’m sorry, man.” He puts his hand on Steve’s shoulder, and Steve sighs, tired all at once. “I hope you know I got your back on this. Anything you need, I’m here for you.” 

Steve smiles at that, small and genuine. “I don’t deserve a man as good as you,” he winks, and Sam breaks into a wide grin, claps him on the shoulder while he laughs. 

“Damn right.” 

\--

Steve walks into the apartment ready to hide for a few hours or weeks when Bucky walks into the hall and stops dead. Steve thinks wildly for a moment about how hard Bucky has to work to be stable, sometimes even to know what’s real and what’s not. He should have warned him, prepared him somehow. 

“Steve?” Bucky asks, hoarse, voice breaking. He’s so completely absorbed in taking in Steve’s body that Steve thinks he can’t be monitoring anything else in the room. Bucky takes an automatic step forward, then another, until his hands run over Steve’s shoulders, broad and heavy. 

“Hey,” Steve says with a tired smile. “Surprise.” 

“How?” Bucky asks, hair falling over his wide eyes. 

“Magic,” Steve shrugs, and damn Bucky is built like a brick shithouse now, isn’t he? 

“Are you ok?” Bucky asks, and his voice is falling into the crisis mode he recognizes so well, watches Bucky check him over with his eyes like he can see through his skin. "Are you hurting?" 

Steve takes the question for what it is, remembers the years with the constant background of pain they both lived through. “No, Buck. I’m healthy, ‘s far as they can tell,” Steve answers honestly. “Serum’s not gone. I’m just, this,” he shrugs. He feels unsteady under Bucky’s touch, feels it all finally hitting him. 

Bucky lowers himself down carefully onto his knees, and pulls Steve’s slight body into a hug. 

“Hell,” Steve says, voice cracking. “I can’t do this, I don’t want to do this again. Don’t make me do this,” he says to no one in particular, and Bucky’s arms surround him. 

\--

After he’s fallen into an exhausted sleep with Bucky lying next to him, he gets up the next morning and brushes his teeth, routine. He strips to get in the shower and spends so long staring at his body in the mirror that Bucky quietly slips in and turns off the water. Steve ignores him until he sees Bucky casually stripping off his own shirt and pants, leaving his boxers. 

Bucky stands next to him, silently, looking at himself. He’s got lines of ropy keloid scarring from the metal arm they grafted into his body without his consent. The red star is gone, Steve notes. Bucky runs two fingers over the scars. 

“What are you trying to say?” Steve says, tired. He wants to be grateful for the way Bucky is making himself vulnerable, but he can’t find it in himself. 

“What do you see?” Bucky asks simply. 

Steve looks, sees Bucky’s familiar hooded eyes, the curve of his lips, the line of his jaw. The way his hair falls to frame his face. The muscle he’s put on, the strength of his thighs, the smooth movement of the metal arm. Everything he’s survived. 

“You know what I see,” Steve says, shaking his head. Then, because he doesn’t get to say it enough, “you’re beautiful, Buck.” 

Bucky looks at him. 

“I can’t do that,” Steve says. He follows the curve of his own hip bones, tenses his lean thighs to feel their strength. Looks past the small curves on his chest, grating over his mind like nails on a chalkboard. 

“I’m not telling you that you have to like it,” Bucky says, steady. “But there’s nothing wrong with the way you are, either.” 

Steve shakes his head. “Why can you do this, now?” He gestures between them. 

Bucky looks uncomfortable, but he gives it to him straight. “I couldn’t get this close without getting worked up. Felt like a threat.” 

It’s hard to hear, even if he knew it already. Bucky did perfectly fine with most strangers in the corner store. 

“I could still break your face,” Steve grumbles, and Bucky just smiles. 

“Yeah,” Bucky takes him in, “yeah, bet you could,” he says, and he’s so honest that Steve is mollified. “You’d do it all wrong, though.” 

Steve’s eyebrows shoot up. “Yeah?” 

“Center of gravity’s different,” Bucky nods, “plus you’re used to that ox of a body barreling through whatever gets in your way.” 

Steve cracks his knuckles. 

“I trained the Widows,” Bucky says, and Steve’s getting used to this now, Bucky’s casual ownership of his past, the whole thing. “I could train you.” 

“Don’t you want me outta the fight?” Steve shoots back, surprised. 

Bucky laughs at that, bends over to grip the counter, starts laughing again, and Steve can’t help but laugh with him. “Jesus, Rogers,” Bucky says, “since when have you listened to me or stayed outta a fight in your entire goddamn life?” 

\--

It takes a couple days for him to get out of the apartment. He’s anonymous again, but not invisible. He’s got his chest flattened down with a tighter shirt under a too-large flannel, and when he wanders out to the department store two stops over while Bucky’s at therapy he gets sir’d by the retail workers. He feels vulnerable in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time, like he’s glass, like everyone can see right through the hard-won control of his voice. 

On the bus back to meet Bucky, there are only a few seats taken since it’s nowhere near rush hour (the way Buck prefers it), and he’s not paying attention when he sits across from the drunk man who perks up when he walks in. 

The guy stares at him for a few long moments while Steve pulls out his phone. Then he gets up, sits next to Steve, and leans over to whisper in his ear. 

“I like ‘em like you,” he says confidingly. “I had a hermaphrodite before.” 

Steve doesn’t say anything, too shocked to respond, caught-out. He didn’t remember what it felt like to be this vulnerable. He looks up, and the other bus riders look away. 

“Feisty. Really got me going, you know?" He smiles, undresses Steve with his eyes. "You like that?” 

Steve doesn’t want to get in a fight on the bus. He knows that it’ll be him who ends up in jail, and he can’t think of anything he doesn’t want to deal with more right now. 

“Back off, jackass,” Steve growls, and the guy just laughs. 

“Hey, how old’re you, anyway? You go to college around here?” The guys taps fingers on his knee, not enough to get anyone else to pay attention, but enough to get closer to Steve, keep making him uncomfortable. “Where d’you go to college?” 

“Buddy,” Steve says dryly, heart pounding, “if you don’t get your hand off my knee, I’m gonna break it.” 

The guy finally backs off a bit. “Bitch,” he mutters, and Steve’s stop comes up. The guy doesn’t follow him. He thinks about all the people who he probably has followed home, who’ve felt their sense of safety shattered, helpless and vulnerable, unable to trust the people they should be able to go to for help. Afraid to defend themselves. 

He’s pissed. His fingernails are biting his palms when Bucky comes out of the building. 

“You wanna tell me?” Bucky says finally as they’re getting closer to home. 

Steve shakes his head. “Some jerk. Shoulda broke his face.” 

Bucky sighs. 

“They just,” Steve says finally when Bucky turns the key in the lock, “they push, and push, right up to the line, and they know just how to do it. And they know it, how much it gets to you. They need to be taught goddamn _boundaries_ , like in grade school. There have to be consequences, or they’ll just keep doing it.” His hands are shaking. 

Bucky comes into the apartment and shuts the door behind them. “I know,” he says simply, and Steve realizes it’s an odd relief to know he does. He’s been there for the nights Bucky woke up screaming and started to attack before he came back to himself, or curled up in a corner chanting to himself, unable to believe Steve was there beside him. There are files of Bucky missing teeth and fingernails, his eyes black, the stump of his arm infected and rotting. And that was only the beginning of the ways they used his body how they saw fit, scooped him out and shoveled their doctrine in. 

Christ, does he know. 

“I’m pissed as hell,” Steve admits, and Bucky nods. He walks over and drags the coffee table out of the middle of the floor. 

“Good,” Bucky says. “Tape up.” 

\--

When Steve’s exhausted from the series of precise movements Bucky makes him repeat over and over, dodging the mass of Bucky’s arms and leveraging the weight of his body against him, Steve finally falls onto the couch, leaning against him. 

Bucky pulls the tape off of Steve's knuckles, rubs at the abrasions below, already healing. 

“Hands are cold,” Bucky notes. 

Steve shuffles in closer to him. “Thanks,” he says simply, and Bucky takes Steve’s hands in his, dwarfing them. Bucky draws in a sharp breath when Steve leans into him, pressing his back to his chest. 

“You ok?” Steve asks, ready to move. 

“Yeah,” Bucky says hesitantly. “Just, give me a minute.”

Bucky’s tense against his back, and Steve shifts. “Do you want me to go?” 

“No,” Bucky says quickly, “no, I can do this. It’s just a physical thing. If I work on it, I can… I’ll get better.”

“Buck,” Steve says softly, “when you’re touched, do you panic?” 

“Not, every time,” Bucky replies, and Steve can hear the self-deprecation. “Just when it’s like this.” 

“Intimate,” Steve offers. 

“Something like that.”

Steve gently extracts his hands from Bucky’s, wraps both of them around one of Bucky’s hands. “Not gonna hurt you,” he says, and Bucky sighs. 

“Yeah,” Bucky says, relaxing back into the couch. He lets his warm palm slip under where Steve’s shirt is pulling, covering his stomach. Steve twitches. 

“Not gonna hurt you,” Bucky says. “Just this.” He holds Steve against him gently, like he’s cuddling a teddy bear. “This ok? You want to do something else?” 

Steve shakes his head, lets himself be held. He burrows into the embrace and feels Bucky’s sigh of relief as he plays with the fine bones of Steve’s hand, feels the rise and fall of Steve’s stomach. Steve feels the initial reflex of _too close, too vulnerable_ fade, and drifts into a hazy contentment he hasn’t felt in a long, long time. He shifts to feel the muscles in his legs, his back, smiles when Bucky nuzzles his hair with a humming noise. 

“You like it,” Steve shakes his head. 

“I like you any way,” Bucky replies, honest. 

“You really think I’m gonna be able to fight like this?” Steve asks, fishing. 

“Are you?” Bucky challenges, and Steve’s answer is so immediate that he laughs. 

“You’ve changed,” Steve says, running a thumb over the back of Bucky’s hand. 

“I’m trying,” Bucky shrugs, and Steve can feel it brush up against his shoulder blades. Bucky’s relaxed now, and they’re both seeking the gentle touches here and there like cats soaking up affection. 

This body isn’t home, not yet. He’s not happy about it, he’s not at peace. But he thinks that whatever’s going to happen, he can survive it. They’ve got enough practice between them to know how.

**Author's Note:**

> creepy dude words are exact creepy dude words I have gotten, most of them two days ago. ugh. in lieu of breaking faces, I wrote that
> 
> PLUS I would like to note that there are no goddamn human hermaphrodites, it's not biologically possible, the term you are looking for is intersex and you are wrong you creepy ass motherfucking
> 
> also I have more trans!steve, including my head canon backstory (Back When) and reunion (Again). both of which have The Sex in them.


End file.
